Carl Sagan Quotes - Page 15

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• Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Its goal is to find out how the world works, to seek what regularities there may be, to penetrate to the connections of things-from subatomic particles, which may be the constituents of all matter, to living organisms, the human social community, and thence to the cosmos as a whole.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Thinking, Goal

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• Not all bits have equal value.

  Carl Sagan

  Equal, Science And Technology, Bits

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.315, Ballantine Books

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• We can always take but never give.

  Carl Sagan

  Giving

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• You mean am I for it or against it? You think this is a key question I'm going to be asked on Vega, and you want to make sure I give the right answer? Okay. Overpopulation is why I'm in favor of homosexuality and a celibate clergy. A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism.

  Carl Sagan

  Mean, Thinking, Vegas

  Carl Sagan (1997). “Contact”, p.243, Simon and Schuster

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• The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.

  Carl Sagan

  Cosmos

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.25, Ballantine Books

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• The Hindu religion is the only of the World's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths.

  Carl Sagan

  Ideas, Numbers, Cosmos

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.284, Ballantine Books

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• For all I know we may be visited by a different extraterrestrial civilization every second Tuesday, but there's no support for this appealing idea. The extraordinary claims are not supported by extraordinary evidence.

  Carl Sagan

  Civilization, Ideas, Tuesday

  "Cosmos/ Encyclopaedia Galactica". Documentary, www.imdb.com. 1980.

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• The evidence, so far at least and laws of Nature aside, does not require a Designer. Maybe there is one hiding, maddeningly unwilling to be revealed.

  Carl Sagan

  Law, Atheism, Doe

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.76, Ballantine Books

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• Probably a dozen times since their death I've heard my mother or father, in an ordinary conversational tone of voice, call my name. They had called my name often during my life with them ... It doesn't seem strange to me.

  Carl Sagan

  Mother, Father, Science

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• All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95% of Americans are "scientifically illiterate." That's...the same fraction...of slaves who were illiterate before the Civil War.

  Carl Sagan

  War, Smart, Passion

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• We on Earth have just awakened to the great oceans of space and time from which we have emerged.

  Carl Sagan

  Ocean, Space, Earth

  "Cosmos: A Personal Voyage". TV Series, Episode 1: The Shores of the Cosmic Ocean, 1990.

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• I worry that, especially as the Millennium edges nearer, pseudo-science and superstition will seem year by year more tempting, the siren song of unreason more sonorous and attractive.

  Carl Sagan

  Song, Years, Worry

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.50, Ballantine Books

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• We seem, these days, much more willing to recognize the perils before us than we were even a decade ago. The newly recognized dangers threaten all of us, equally. No one can say how it will turn out down here. But this is also, we may note, the first time that a species has become able to journey to the planets and the stars. Sailors on a becalmed sea, we sense a stirring of the breeze.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Journey, Sea

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• Arguments from authority carry little weight – authorities have made mistakes in the past. They will do so again in the future. Perhaps a better way to say it is that in science there are no authorities; at most, there are experts.

  Carl Sagan

  Mistake, Past, Way

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.271, Ballantine Books

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• I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Science, Religion

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• On the day that we do discover that we are not alone, our society may begin to evolve and transform in some incredible and wondrous new ways.

  Carl Sagan

  May, Our Society, Way

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• When we look up at night and view the stars, everything we see is shinning because of distant nuclear fusion.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Night, Views

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.249, Ballantine Books

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• Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Cosmos, Voyages

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.307, Ballantine Books

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• If we are merely matter intricately assembled, is this really demeaning? If there's nothing here but atoms, does that make us less or does that make matter more?

  Carl Sagan

  Doe, Atoms, Matter

  Carl Sagan (2006). “The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God”, p.108, Penguin

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• Even today the most jaded city dweller can be unexpectedly moved upon encountering a clear night sky studded with thousands of twinkling stars. When it happens to me after all these years it still takes my breath away.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Night, Years

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space”, p.120, Ballantine Books

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• Each of us is a tiny being, permitted to ride on the outermost skin of one of the smaller planets for a few dozen trips around the local star.

  Carl Sagan

  Stars, Skins, Dozen

  Carl Sagan, Ann Druyan (2011). “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, p.30, Ballantine Books

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• If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now and then, a new idea turns out to be on the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and progress.

  Carl Sagan

  Science, Data, Support You

  "The Burden of Skepticism" by Carl Sagan, 1987.

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• Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.

  Carl Sagan

  Book, Magic, Cosmos

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Cosmos”, p.305, Ballantine Books

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• We are a way for the cosmos to know itself.

  Carl Sagan

  Knowledge, Science, Cosmos

  Carl Sagan, Tom Head (2006). “Conversations with Carl Sagan”, p.57, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• It means nothing to be open to a proposition we don't understand.

  Carl Sagan

  Atheist, Mean, Religion

  Carl Sagan (2011). “Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark”, p.393, Ballantine Books

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